


Perfect Storm

by yodasyoyo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: And light Smut, Didn't Know They Were Dating, FBI Agent Stiles Stilinski, Fuck Buddies to Lovers, He's trying to respect boundaries, It isn't Stiles fault ok?, M/M, Or fluff, Post canon, So this creates a kind of perfect storm, Which is my favorite weather forecast lbr, and Derek's the kinda guy who likes to let his actions do the talking, briefly mentions stiles/oc, semi road-trip, use your words boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:28:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26738122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yodasyoyo/pseuds/yodasyoyo
Summary: “Dumbass,” Derek mutters. The timbre of his voice absolutely should not send a jolt straight to Stiles’ dick, but his dick is fucked, metaphorically speaking.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 98
Kudos: 1390
Collections: Fandom Cares





	Perfect Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jerkoffanangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerkoffanangel/gifts).



> This was written for jerkoffanangel, who bid on me in the BLM auction for Fandomcares. (Thank-you so much, btw!)
> 
> They requested fuckbuddies to lovers! I tried my best. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Thanks to Grimmypuff for the quick beta :D

Stiles never means for it to happen, ok? Not any of it.

Back during his first ever briefing at the FBI, when Stiles saw Derek sprinting across the TV screen like some kind of pissed off gazelle, his first thought had been, “Oh fuck, what has he done now?” Not. “Oh wow, I really oughta tap that.”

Insinuating himself into an ongoing investigation in order to rescue Derek had just been the logical extension of the ongoing pattern they’d established back in Beacon Hills — not a plan to get laid.

They rescue each other. That’s what they do. So it wasn’t that surprising when Derek returned the favor almost immediately: Carrying Stiles out of the resulting FBI shoot-out, bundling him into the back of the Camaro, and driving him to a Motel 6 just outside town.

So Stiles never means for any of it to happen, but perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised. The universe has always seemed to enjoy throwing him and Derek together.

“What were you even doing there anyway?” Derek huffs throwing the door to his motel room open and storming through. He isn’t carrying Stiles like he had been earlier, but he holds the door open as Stiles hobbles past him.

“You mean other than saving your ass?” 

Derek turns and levels a look at him. “Who saved whose ass?”

“I didn’t ask you to bridal carry me out of there.” Stiles stomps across to the dresser where there’s a half empty bottle of Jim Beam and a couple of cartons of Chinese food. He picks up a pair of chopsticks and pokes idly at what looks to be congealed moo shu pork. “How old is this?” he asks, speculatively— it looks like it’s been there awhile, but Stiles’ belly is growly.

Derek rolls his eyes. “I am not feeding you.”

“Where’s the gratitude, Sour Wolf, huh?” Stiles drops the chopsticks and swipes the bottle of Jim Beam instead. He shuffles over to the bed: a queen with a comforter that looks stained, and smells stale even to Stiles’ meagre human senses. Sitting heavily, he places the bottle on the floor next to him, then starts to ease his sock off. Coagulated blood sticks sock to ragged skin, and he hisses in pain.

A second later Derek’s right there hovering next to him, radiating irritable concern.

“Do you have a tissue,” Stiles hisses. “Or a wet one or something?” Gingerly he peels the last of the bloody sock away, balls it up, and lobs it in the direction of a wastepaper basket. It bounces off the rim and lays there on the floor looking sorry for itself. With a sigh, Stiles stares down at his little toe and then blanches — God, hopefully this looks worse than it is.

Next to him Derek’s mouth is drawn into a tight moue of disapproval, eyebrows pulled down. Shit, Stiles had forgotten how attractive Derek looks when he pouts — it’s insane, really. That bad boy look really works for him, with the scowl and the leather jacket, and — then Derek produces a crumpled Kleenex from the recesses of said jacket and holds it out, a reminder to Stiles’ libido that Derek’s bad boy aesthetic only extends so far.

Without a word Stiles takes the tissue, balls it up, picks up the bottle of Jim Beam and yanks the lid off with his teeth. Then he covers the mouth of the bottle with the balled up tissue and upends it briefly.

“Stiles—” Derek says.

“I’ve gotta clean the wound, ok?” Stiles says. “Some of us don’t have werewolf healing. We can die from pesky little things like septicemia, and tetanus, and—” He dabs carefully at his toe with the alcohol soaked tissue and lets out a, “Shit motherfucker fuck shit.”

“If you—”

Stiles waves him quiet and, lifting the bottle to his lips, takes a couple of long pulls, wincing as the whiskey burns a trail down his throat— it’s the only kind of anaesthetic available in the circumstances, so it’ll have to do. 

Derek is still huffing and hovering over him, an unlikely combination of mother hen and underwear model. 

When Stiles tries to dab at his toe again and cringes, Derek exhales through his nose, and rolls his eyes. “Just. Let me,” he says brusquely, and kneels in front of Stiles with an air of injured patience. 

“I—”

“I can take your pain.” He gestures to himself. “Werewolf, remember?”

“Whatever,” Stiles says, pissily. But he lets Derek snatch the bloodstained tissue from his hand, and doesn’t recoil this time when Derek’s broad palm closes over his injured foot, close but not touching the actual injury. A second later he feels that telltale tingling warmth as Derek begins to pull pain from him. The sensation has always made him lightheaded and he slumps forward.

Immediately, Derek reaches out with his other hand and grabs his shoulder to steady him. “Keep still.”

“Yeah,” Stiles mumbles. “‘k.”

Once it’s clear that he isn’t about to faint, Derek releases his grip and starts to dab at his toe with the tissue, it’s more gentle than Stiles was expecting and barely hurts at all.

Maybe it’s the alcohol, or the werewolf pain relief, or some heady combination of the two, but Stiles finds himself staring down at the Derek. His bowed head, dark hair that curls delicately at the vulnerable nape. As Derek tilts his head to one side for a better view, Stiles glimpses the dark sweep of his lashes against his cheek.

Fuck.

Taking another swig of the Jim Beam, Stiles shuts his eyes, and just breathes. For a long moment there’s nothing except the dull throb of pain from his foot, and the sound of them both breathing.

“Hmm,” Derek says after a beat. “It’s not so bad.” Opening his eyes, Stiles follows the line of Derek’s gaze. “I think your shoe took most of the damage,” Derek continues. “It just grazed your toe.”

“Tis only a flesh wound,” Stiles mumbles.

They meet each other’s gaze. There’s a gentle snort from Derek which, Stiles learned a long time ago, is tantamount to a laugh. As Stiles watches, the corner of Derek’s mouth curves up in an almost-smile.

Frankly, it’s more attractive than it has any right to be.

“Dumbass,” Derek mutters. The timbre of his voice absolutely should not send a jolt straight to Stiles’ dick, but his dick is fucked, metaphorically speaking. Years growing up in the shitshow of Beacon Hills mean he’s lost track of what normal people find sexy. Escaping an FBI shoot out in the company of a suspected serial killer, who also happens to be an apex predator, and who, Stiles knows for a fact, enjoys marathoning Murder She Wrote reruns because he has a weird crush on Jessica Fletcher? These things should not be sexy. Probably. Or maybe they should be. Stiles lost all perspective on the issue some time ago.

Whatever. The point is, he’s used to pushing those impulses down where Derek is concerned. 

“Eh, you love my dumb ass,” Stiles says, and that should be the end of it, except for the briefest second Derek’s gaze flits down, lingering on Stiles’ mouth and then away. It’s over almost immediately, but Stiles knows what he saw— and the way Derek’s ears are turning a delightful shade of pink only confirms it.

Huh.

That’s—

Ok. But here’s the thing:

Objectively Derek’s pretty annoying. Well. He’s pretty and he’s annoying and over the years Stiles has come to the conclusion that _that_ is basically his type. It’s just that somehow in this moment Derek’s prettiness is at the forefront of Stiles’ mind, probably in part because he just rescued Stiles. He always rescues Stiles — because he’s actually a good guy. 

And it isn’t just that he’s attractive, ok? Stiles likes him. As a person. 

He’s grown a lot in the past year or so, and he can admit that now.

Does Derek know that, though? 

Is he aware? 

Ugh. Stiles’ head is still fuzzy from the werewolf pain relief and maybe a little from the alcohol. Perhaps that’s why he leans forward, catching the back of Derek’s head with his free hand, and holding it steady.  
  
“Hey,” he says, blinking at Derek, who stares back at him, expression now carefully blank. “Hey, you.”

“Stiles?” Derek says, “What—”

Stiles shushes him gently, tugging Derek forward until their foreheads are almost touching and, amazingly, Derek goes. He doesn’t seem inclined to rend Stiles limb from limb either, which is a plus. “You should know—” Stiles trails off.

When he doesn’t offer any immediate follow up, Derek sighs. “What? What should I know?”

Stiles has a history of saying exactly what he means, but that’s usually restricted to the non-feelings based stuff, especially where Derek is concerned. Turns out it’s easier to snipe insults in the heat of the moment then articulate something like this. “I— I don’t not like you,” Stiles admits; he means every word.

Derek’s throat clicks as he swallows. “I don’t not like you either,” he says after a beat, and there’s that look again. A spark of something in Derek’s eyes that Stiles recognizes immediately, because he feels it too. Attraction. Reluctant affection. Or maybe it’s just the weight of all their shared experiences. Without letting himself think too much he pulls Derek closer smushing their lips together.

It lasts the barest second before Stiles brain wrenches control of the wheel back from the weird dick/emotion combo that seems to be driving things at the moment; he pulls back, panic rising in his chest.

When he does he finds Derek’s staring at him. 

“Sorry,” Stiles says, feeling himself flush pink. “I— Sorry.”

Derek releases a slow breath. “It’s ok,” he says. “You’re drunk.” 

Stiles shakes his head, sitting straighter. “No,” he says. “No. I’m not. Not really. Not at all. Trust me. It takes more than a couple of shots to— uh. I Just. You’re really. And there’s always been this thing— there. Between us. I thought. If you don’t want to, though—” 

The silence that follows is long and uncomfortable; Stiles can’t read the expression on Derek’s face at all, and he has no werewolf senses to help him decipher things.

After a beat Derek’s jaw clenches, and his eyes drop to look at Stiles’ mouth again. “If we uh—” He wets his lips, and that’s when Stiles knows. This is happening. Derek continues, “If we do this. It’s just a one time thing, ok? I’m not. It wouldn’t be any more than—”

“Dude, that’s fine,” Stiles says, quickly. “I’m in my post-Lydia break-up phase and I am not looking to get involved in a relationship, believe me. Especially not with someone who, as an intern with the FBI, I should technically be—” He realizes just in time that finishing the sentence would probably be a mood killer.

“I didn’t hurt those people,” says Derek, soft but firm. “They’re after the wrong guy.”

“Well duh.” Stiles rolls his eyes. “Why do you think I inserted myself into the investigation in the first place? They don’t normally let interns tagalong to hunt suspected serial killers, y’know?” He meets Derek’s intense gaze with a wide grin.

The expression on Derek’s face does something complicated, but Stiles doesn’t have time to process what it means, because a second later Derek’s surging upwards and pulling him into a kiss.

It’s nothing like the tentative press of lips mere seconds ago. It’s fierce, and possessive, and everything Stiles thought kissing Derek would be like when he was sixteen, and horny, and alone in his bedroom with nothing but his right hand and his imagination for company.

“Fuck, yeah!” he mumbles as Derek manhandles him backwards onto the bed like he weights nothing. “That’s — Fuck. So hot!”

“What do you want?” Derek mutters against his mouth, as he thumbs the button on Stiles pants open. 

“I don’t… God. Why are your jeans so tight?” Stiles fingers fumble, as he paws at Derek’s zipper. “I can’t.”

“For fucks sake.” Derek huffs out a sigh. “Just. Let me.”

The spend a frantic moment with their fingers trembling over zippers and underwear. The next thing Stiles knows Derek’s spitting on his palm, and putting a hand around them both, and then there’s nothing except the velvet soft slide of hot skin, and it’s good. It’s so fucking good. All Stiles can do is hang onto Derek’s shoulders for dear life, panting into the crook of his neck, while Derek works them both, swearing low and furious under his breath.

Stiles can feel the end in sight, and would be embarrassed about how quickly it’s gonna be over, but then Derek comes first, biting his lip like he’s trying to hold it in, even as his back arches and his grip stutters. 

The sight of his shocked, blissed out expression has Stiles mumbling, “Fuck,” as he spills too. His head falls back against the pillow. There’s that blessedly free sensation that comes with it, where his brain stops trying to process every single fucking thing, and he just _is_ for a moment — free and floating high above it all.

Then a second later Derek rolls off him, breathing hard. “Jesus,” he mutters, cutting a look at Stiles and then away quickly. The tips of his ears are crimson, and just like that Stiles’ brain starts to power back up again.

He has come on his hand, and more on his shirt. He doesn’t have a spare, either. None of this was planned. He needs to text Rafe and get him to square things with the guys at the academy, who are probably wondering where the fuck he is. He needs to — 

His stomach rumbles ominously.

“We should order take out,” he says, cutting through the post hook-up awkwardness and getting straight to the point. “I don’t know about you, but sex makes me snacky.”

“Fine,” Derek says. He smiles then, small but genuine, and just like that Stiles knows they’re gonna be ok. Derek rolls away, swings his legs over the side of the bed and gets to his feet. “I’ll wash up and then order pizza.”

“No olives!” Stiles hums, rubbing his come-covered hand on his already ruined shirt, and using his clean hand to fish out his phone. He thumbs the screen open and starts to text Rafe. “But extra cheese.”

“Whatever,” says Derek, but it sounds fond. They spend the rest of the evening watching old movies on the motel room’s ancient TV and eating subpar pizza. They don’t debate who’s gonna get the bed, because they’re pretty much past that point now— but they don’t have sex again either.

Still. It’s pretty good. Relaxed. Stiles never figured himself as someone who could do the whole one night stand thing, but if this is how it works, maybe he should reconsider. Or maybe this just worked out so well because Derek is someone he trusts. That’s the last thing he thinks to himself before he drifts off to sleep.

When he wakes the next morning, he has a slew of messages on his phone from various pack members, and so does Derek. Turns out they’re both needed back in Beacon Hills.

-

They don’t talk about it. They drive two days cross country without mentioning the fact that they’ve touched each other's dicks. Derek bites his lip when he comes. That’s a thing Stiles knows now. A thing he tries and fails to cram into a rusty filing cabinet in the back of his mind, and not think about.

Mostly he’s successful, and Derek certainly doesn’t seem to wanna talk about it.

They’re passing through Colorado when they get ambushed by a couple of hunters in the alley by the diner they’d chosen to eat at that evening. Actually it’s Derek who gets ambushed. Stiles decided just after they settled the bill that he needed to pee, and Derek had left to bring the car around. Anyway, it works out well in the grand scheme of things, because it’s Stiles’ _turn_ to do the rescuing. Post-piss, Stiles leaves the diner and finds Derek cornered, one hunter has a crossbow trained on him, the other a pistol, and neither have noticed that Stiles is there because they have their backs to him, and they’re too busy monologuing. 

There’s a moldering two by four propped up against a nearby trash can, and Stiles stealths over, grabs it and then thwacks the guy with the pistol over the head with it as hard as he can. The guy drops like a stone.

As his friend falls, crossbow guy wheels round, his finger spasms against the trigger, and a crossbow bolt embeds itself in the wall of the alley. By that time, Derek’s already made his move, and it’s all over, bar the bloody burbling and begging for mercy.

Hunters. They never learn.

When Stiles and Derek make their way back to their motel room that night, there’s barely a scratch on them, and they’re both still kinda high on adrenaline. This time it’s Derek who initiates, pushing Stiles up against the wall, as soon as they’re through the door, and kissing him like he’s drowning.

“One more time?” His voice is rough, and Stiles thinks he probably means it to sound like a statement. A confirmation. But the words curl up at the ends uncertain— seeking reassurance. Permission. 

It didn’t get weird last time, right? They can do this again, and it doesn’t have to mean anything. Stiles gulps, then nods. One more time. Just one more.

Derek’s eyes are glowing blue, the wolf stalking the edges of his control, as he leans in again and gives Stiles another searing kiss. It’s hot as fuck, and it only gets hotter when he drops to his knees; Stiles bites down on his fist, and tries to hold on.

-

There’s round one. Then a shower. Then round two, because they’re both apparently still into it, and consenting adults — so why not? Then, when they’ve both cleaned up (again), they lie on the bed next to each other, watching terrible reality shows and shouting abuse at the TV.

It.

It’s comfortable.

That’s the thing.

It isn’t love. They aren’t dating. It’s just. Stiles trusts Derek with his life, and whenever he’s reminded of the fact, somehow it makes sense to trust him with his dick too. He says that to Derek as they’re falling asleep that night, and Derek huffs out a laugh and calls him an idiot, but Stiles is pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

After that they stop trying to justify it. It’s only a day or two more until they reach Beacon Hills, but mutual orgasms is a thing they do now, apparently. Stiles figures they may as well enjoy it. After all, they don’t know what they’re gonna find once they reach home, so they might as well take the little crumbs of comfort life offers.

-

Everything in Beacon Hills is awful, because it always is. But the pack kicks ass, because they always do, and once everything has returned to what passes for normal, Stiles returns to Quantico to resume his training at the academy (thanks to Rafe for smoothing things over) and Derek’s name gets cleared in the process.

Stiles and Derek go their separate ways, and if Stiles sometimes looks back fondly on their impromptu road trip/fuckfest, that’s nobody's business but his own. He suspects he isn’t the only one with happy memories though, because they stay in touch. Mainly they text. Sometimes because they need advice about the supernatural (mostly Stiles), sometimes just random streams of consciousness (always Stiles), and occasionally to talk about baseball (both), or share cat videos they found on YouTube, (surprisingly, Derek).

There’s something deeply pleasing about their tsundere dynamic. All that snark and prickly angst from the beginning of their relationship, mellowing into something easy, and almost fond. 

The fact that they occasionally meet up and make each other come so hard they can hear colors probably helps too.

Thing is, it turns out Derek has an art history degree, and a job at an auction house in New York. He travels _often._ It’s three months after the _original_ road trip fuckathon when he texts Stiles to say he’ll be in Henrico county to evaluate a painting that Friday. Stiles drives over to have dinner with him. Except dinner becomes an invitation back to Derek’s hotel room, which somehow, Stiles isn’t clear on the details, becomes him giving Derek a blow job, and then fucking him into the mattress. Twice. 

Stiles can’t even stay the night. He has drills the next morning. He has to drive back to Quantico at 2am, and spends the next day hauling his sorry ass around an obstacle course at six.

He gets through it though. It’s worth it, after all. Sex that good is pretty much always worth it, and Derek is good company.

Once or twice in those early days he hooks up with his fellow students, but after a while he stops, because the truth is— sex with Derek is just better. Sure, partly it’s the werewolf stamina and the concomitant refractory period, but it’s also the way Derek’s hair sticks up at the back in this one persistent tuft the morning after, and the look he gets on his face as he tries to hide his when Stiles makes a joke. It’s all just... better.

So they keep doing it. They keep meeting up whenever Derek finds himself even vaguely in the area (which happens surprisingly often), and if meeting up and hanging out inevitably leads to mind melting sex, then that’s no one else business but theirs right?

A month passes. Then two. Three. Six.  
  
It’s only when one of Stiles’ fellow interns, Lilah, turns to him one Friday after class and asks, “Are you seeing your boyfriend this weekend?” That Stiles starts to question himself.

“My— who?” Stiles blinks at her.

“Your boyfriend?” Lilah says, like he’s the idiot. “The guy you’re seeing.”

“I’m not seeing a guy.”

“The one you showed me a picture of. Y’know. The two of you. With the big stack of pancakes, and you’re both smiling at the camera. D — Dean, something?”

“Ohhh. You mean Derek? No that was— we’re just friends. I mean we hook up if he’s in the area. Or near the area. Or within, like, a six hour drive of wherever I —” Stiles does some quick math. “So maybe a couple times a month?”

She’s staring at him, eyebrows creeping toward her hairline. “You hook up, and then you go out for brunch the next day?”

“Sex makes me hungry!” Stiles says, annoyed at the way he sounds all squeaky and defensive to his own ears. “So yeah, sometimes we get breakfast. Or brunch. Or catch a baseball game. Or sometimes a movie. But that’s only if we’re both free for the weekend. Because that bit’s just as friends.”

“Just as friends.” He doesn’t appreciate her tone. “Friends? Seriously? This is Derek you’re talking about. The same guy that you text all the time.”

“Yes!”

“The one you call a couple times a week for, like, an hour.”

“He’s funny! He just hides it well. But we like each other!”

“Yes.” She looks at him. Significantly.

“Pshaw!” He waves a hand airily. “You just don’t understand our particular brand of awesomeness. We are friends with benefits. That’s all. It’s totally legit.”

She gives him the kind of assessing look that makes his skin prickle and his soul feel bare; it reminds him horribly of Lydia. “Ok,” she says, after a long beat. “So you’d be fine if he started dating someone else then? Because if he’s into girls, then I definitely—”

“I—” Stiles swallows down the bile that makes a sudden bid for escape. He tries to keep his smile steady, but he can’t hold onto it, and it slides off his face. His stomach feels like it’s hurtling towards the earth’s core. “Yeah. Sure. Obviously. You can. Totally. Do you. Want his number? Or?” He inhales shakily. “Or—uh. Fuck.”

She’s smirking at him. She’s fucking smirking. 

“Not funny,” he says, jabbing a finger at her.

“Oh I’m very funny. You should tell Derek that,” she says, but she’s grinning. “Or maybe not. Because he’s your _boyfriend._ ”

“Fuck off,” he says but there’s no heat to it.

She loops her arm through his. “Come on. It’s Taco Tuesday, and you’re gonna buy me lunch, and then I’m gonna tell you all about Andy from HR.”

“Andy?”

“Yup. He asked me out and—”

-

Later that night he sits up thinking about it, and he’s pretty sure Lilah doesn’t know what she’s talking about. But even if she does— ugh.

The thing is, he likes what he and Derek have. It’s uncomplicated. Natural. Easy. 

Sure, maybe it could be more. But if he tries to make it more maybe he’ll ruin it.

And Derek had been clear when this started. So totally fucking clear. No relationship, and Stiles had agreed.

So.

So what if he maybe has some squishy feelings for everyone’s favorite former Alpha? They’re just that. Feelings. Feelings don’t matter. You push feelings down and ignore them, and eventually they go away. 

That’s just how it works. That’s science. Fortunately Stiles can ignore things until they go away like a champ. So this? It isn’t a problem.

It would be different if Derek felt the same way. But he doesn’t.

What they have is fine.

It’s fine.

Stiles is gonna be totally cool about this and definitely not ruin things.

That’s all there is to it.

-

It’s the day before Thanksgiving when Stiles finds himself in New York. He’s just finished helping out on a case, and he was supposed to fly back tonight, but the flight got cancelled, and now he’s stuck at the airport, surrounded by crowds of grumpy people. When he texts Derek to tell him where he is, his phone rings a moment later.

“Come over? I’ll feed you.”

Stiles doesn’t even have to think. “Fuck yes.”

An hour later he’s clambering out of a yellow cab that smells of cheap air freshener and stale cigarettes, and pressing the buzzer next to Derek’s apartment building. It’s a place that he has heard about, but never seen.

All his previous tiredness falls away as he takes the stairs to Derek’s apartment two at a time, hefting his suitcase with him. He has his tie loosened and the top button of his shirt popped for ease of access — because he’s pretty sure ‘I’ll feed you’ means a sex marathon and then greasy take out— which he is one hundred percent here for, by the way.

Except when he gets there, the door to Derek’s apartment is ajar and the smell of home cooked food wafts into the hallway. Stiles cocks his eyebrow in confusion, his steps slow.

“Hey! Come in,” Derek calls, from somewhere within the apartment.

Stiles steps through the open door, and blinks. There’s a spacious hallway, all exposed brick, a chrome coat stand, which has Derek’s leather jacket on it, next to a shoe rack, with sneakers and boots in a neat line. There’s a ficus and a selection of mail sitting on an end table, and a cluster of pictures on the wall opposite the coat stand. Stiles shucks his coat and hangs it up, feeling like he’s in the twilight zone, he toes off his shoes and places them next to Derek’s on the rack, then closes the door behind himself.

“You ok?” Derek calls.

Stiles says, “Fine!” Which is, in fact, a lie, because his stomach is churning like he just reached the top of a roller coaster, and he can’t work out _why_.

He moves down the hallway pulling his suitcase with him, and takes a look at the pictures. They’re photographs, in a variety of different frames, arranged with an artistic flare that Stiles now recognizes as belonging to Derek. He looks with interest. Some are of people Stiles doesn’t know, old family pictures, or maybe friends from New York. A couple are of Derek and Cora, drinking cocktails on a beach somewhere, or out in a club. But right in with all of them — Stiles swallows. The pic he showed Lilah. The one where they’re both beaming up at the camera over a stack of blueberry pancakes. There’s another of them at a baseball game. A third is a candid shot of Stiles, that he didn’t even realize Derek had taken, golden sunlight catching the angles of his face just so, as he sits in the Jeep.

Oh.

_Oh._

“Hey,” comes Derek’s voice, and Stiles' head snaps up to look at him. Derek’s head is poking through the doorway, and he’s looking at Stiles curiously.

“I— uh. Nice pics,” Stiles says, because he can’t think of anything else to say.

“Thanks! Can I get you a drink or—?”

“Uh— yeah—” Stiles legs operate without his conscious permission; his brain feels like it’s trickling out his ears. Stupid feelings are swirling around his head, and the content of his stomach are trying to crawl out of his throat. What he finds in the kitchen is no help at _all._ “You, you’re actually cooking? For me?”

Derek’s chopping vegetables. Actual vegetables. Like, carrots and shit. 

“I said I’d feed you?”

“Yes.” Stiles nods his head slowly. “Yes you did. You did say that.”

Derek doesn’t seem to notice Stiles' weirdness. He starts talking about the best way to make mashed potatoes, and moves on from that to some work story that Stiles can’t begin to follow, because Derek’s wearing a dorky apron that says Kiss the Cook, and fuck it. Stiles might. He just fucking might.

“Anyway,” Derek is saying, completely oblivious to Stiles internal meltdown. “When you texted I figured. Might as well do a little mini-thanksgiving thing for us tonight. I mean, I know it sucks that you missed your flight, but at least we get to see each other, and you finally get to see my place, right?” He smiles softly.

“Right,” Stiles says faintly.

“You can put your suitcase in the bedroom if you want. Dinner won’t be ready for about another forty minutes? But I drew a bath for you. Figured you might wanna—” he trails off. “Are you ok?”

“I’m—” Stiles shrugs. “Good.” He swallows, and because his brain to mouth filter is never great, adds: “We’re dating.”

“Yes.” Derek looks amused.

“You’re my boyfriend.”

“Right.”

“ _Right_.”

“You’re only just realizing this?” Derek quirks an eyebrow.

“Well in fairness to me, the last time we talked about it— You were pretty clear that _that_ wasn’t an option. And I didn't want to just assume. But—Shit.” Stiles makes face. “We went on dates. Actual fucking _dates._ Fuck. I’m an idiot.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “You’re my idiot though,” he says, and then adds, “right?”

That little wavering note of uncertainty at the end snaps Stiles out of it. “Totally,” he says, gesturing broadly at himself. “All this is yours, for as long as you’ll have me.”

The smile that spreads across Derek’s face might be the broadest, and most genuine Stiles has ever seen. Derek ducks his head, though, and turns back to chopping vegetables. “Dinner,” he says, picking up a knife and gesturing to the pile of carrots. “You have that bath.”

Stiles leans in and presses a kiss to Derek’s cheek. “Yes dear,” Stiles says, partly to be a little shit, but mostly because he can, apparently. 

Derek’s ears flush pink. “Bath,” he says firmly, and Stiles goes.

 **Turns out you were right,** he texts Lilah. **Derek is my boyfriend.**

It’s next morning before she replies. He’s curled around Derek, snug under the comforter. However he reaches for his phone when it pings and opens it. Her reply is just two words:

**Well duh**

“Whazzit?” Derek murmurs, stirring briefly.

“Nothing,” Stiles says, putting his phone down, and pressing a kiss to the back of Derek’s head. “It’s all good. We can go back to sleep.”

-

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. If you leave kudos or comments I am forever grateful!
> 
> Before I get angry comments, I know it mentions Stiles hooking up with his fellow trainees post road-trip, but that happens when he and Derek are BOTH still of the opinion that 'this isn't a relationship, it's just sex'. Denial. Etc. 
> 
> Also: Black Lives Matter!


End file.
